The New Mexico Geological Society extends a cordial welcome to all participants
in its Fifth Field Conference. Previous conferences sponsored by this
society have traversed the San Juan Basin area of the north western corner of the State,
the Rio Grande country of central New Mexico, and the basin and range province
of the south western portion of the State. This excursion affords an opportunity to
examine the structure and stratigraphy of the Sacramento-Guadalupe Mountains
region of southeastern New Mexico.
The Sacramento and Guadalupe Mountains have been the objective of previous
field trips, but the classic exposures,
complex structures and controversial
stratigraphic relationships undoubtedly
merit much more than the usual amount of
attention. The Sacramento escarpment furnishes excellent outcrops of a section
ranging in age from the pre-Cambrian to the middle Permian, while the Guadalupe
Mountains and Delaware Basin offer exposures of the type upper Permian section
for the North American Continent characterized by striking facies changes resulting
from specialized conditions of sedimentation. Along the Barrera del Guadalupe the
fabulous Carlsbad Caverns exist as a mecca for the speleologist. The Delaware
Basin is yielding a huge tonnage of potash from the largest deposits in the world and is showing promise of becoming a major petroleum province. The first day road log is from Alamogordo to Alamo Canyon return to Alamogordo and then to Cloudcroft and on to Carlsbad. The second day road log is in the vicinity of the Guadalupe Mountains area, New Mexico and Texas. The third day road log is from Carlsbad to International Minerals and Chemical Corporation's Potash Mine. There is also an additional road log from Carlsbad to Carlsbad Caverns.

Papers from this guidebook are available for download from the NMGS website.

Our Mineral Museum, bookstore, and offices will be closed for holidays from December 22rd through January 1st. Publications purchased online while we are closed will be processed when we open on January 2nd.